Monday, March 24, 2014

The Best Week in Nicaragua

This week, I basically relaxed and did what I could, and tried to do a little better every day, but didn't worry about doing everything perfectly all at once, and look where it got me: a lot happier!

On Thursday, I did companion exchanges again, this time with one of the sister training leaders over the whole mission. This means that for a day, I was working with her instead of my companion, while my companion went to work with the other companion in her area in another part of Managua. It's an opportunity to learn from other more experienced missionaries. These sister training leaders in particular don't usually do those divisions with sisters like us, who aren't leaders, but I think they thought I needed a little extra help. I was afraid that she was coming because we hadn't been doing a good enough job, too, and so I was super anxious Wednesday night and Thursday morning

But in our companionship planning session at the beginning of our companion exchanges when I was with Sister Cruz, she told me that the Lord was very pleased with what I'd been doing so far, and that line upon line I'd keep learning and doing more, but to not stress too much. She saw over the course of that day that I stress way too much, and told me to stop stressing like that. And when I told her that I didn't feel like I'd made a whole lot of progress in the last 2 months since I was last on exchanges with her companion, she told me that I obviously had or I wouldn't be where I am right now, working in this part of Managua with such a new companion. She was an answer to prayers right there.

On Sunday, we brought 5 visitors to church, and found that a super pilas (awesome) member family has started coming back to church. They are my favorite people in this ward, and it was great to see them living more and more faithful. So church was great, and then we watched Legacy, the movie about the pioneers made in the 90's, at lunch with our lunch cita, visited a less active sister, and hung out talking to her and her twin sister, who is fully active, for hours, before going to our dinner cita, their half sister. And then today we just relaxed and played ultimate with the zone. A good time was had by all.

And today, while in the ciber cafe, the owner was talking with us, and mentioned that she'd seen lots of missionaries in her time here, but that none of them had ever talked with her, so she'd assumed they were rather exclusive. Yet another reason for me to get over my fear of taking to people.

And if I needed other reasons to know that my president is inspired of God and the best person we could have here at this time, he changed the policy put in place by he previous mission president, that missionaries could only attend conference if they brought an investigator, and now requires that every missionary attend every session of General Conference, though preferably with an investigator. Thank goodness. I am so excited for General Conference. It's my favorite. I hope you all do something fun and enjoy it a lot, but most importantly, listen to the words and voices of living prophets.

2012

2013

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."